This invention relates to motor vehicle seat arrangements having movable side cheeks.
Conventional motor vehicle seats have side cheeks which are components of the sitting parts of the vehicle seat and, to facilitate getting in and out of the vehicle by the occupants, they can be retracted to a rest position, whereas during vehicle operation they can be moved into their operating position in which they occupy a place adjacent to the occupant to provide lateral support for the occupant. German Offenlegungsschrift No. 1 580 621 describes a motor vehicle seat having side cheeks which are movable manually between their two positions, and the seat described in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 36 43 876 includes side cheeks which are coupled in motion with an adjacent vehicle door. The seat arrangement according to European Patent No. 0 401 092 causes movement of the side cheeks from the rest position into an operating position in response to transverse accelerations occurring on curves.
These conventional seat configurations do not take into account the situation that arises in the case of a side collision to the vehicle. As is known, side collisions are especially dangerous to vehicle occupants because, in the region of the side walls, including the side doors of the vehicle, there is insufficient room for deformation travel of deformable parts to absorb energy in comparison to the front and rear regions of the vehicle. In a side collision of sufficient severity, therefore, it must be anticipated that the side wall of the vehicle will be forced into the passenger compartment against the occupants sitting near it.